Deroy Murdock: Blame Israel First

After the release of the DOA Iraq Surrender Group report last week, I and many others wondered how on earth did they get Israel into the mix? Insofar as anyone can tell, Israel had nothing to do with invading Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein, or any of the events having taken place since April 2003. Yet somehow, they became a major focus of this absurd report.

Deroy Murdock analyzes this in today National Review.

So, how is Israel responsible for Iraq’s woes? Aren’t the connections obvious?

Abdul, a Sunni, is disappointed with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Ohlmert’s latest policy on Jewish settlements on the West Bank. So, he dons a bomb vest and blows himself up on a Shiite-filled bus in Baghdad. Then, several Shiites, enraged over what they consider Israel’s lack of full-funding for Palestinian middle schools, visit a Hurriya mosque and use dynamite to dismember praying Sunnis. Hours later, Sunni members of al Qaeda in Iraq, steamed that Israel still has not handed Jerusalem to Hamas, drive to Sadr City and explode their sedan beside Shiite shoppers.

Makes perfect sense, no?

The ISG urges that America hold a regional summit with Iraq’s Arab neighbors — but not Israel.

“As [ISG co-chairman Jim] Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure,” an official told Insight.com. The official called this the “hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month.”

Oh, that maddening Jewish pressure! Or, as former New York mayor Ed Koch reported that then-Secretary of State Baker said in 1992: “F*** the Jews; they didn’t vote for us anyway.” (Baker denies making the remark.)

The ISG also suggests that America negotiate over Iraq with Syria and Iran. Syria is a bellicose, terror-sponsoring dictatorship. So is Iran, an almost cinematically wicked menace.

Perhaps the ISG forgot that oil-choked Iran is busy enriching uranium for its “nuclear power plants.” Actually, as everyone else remembers, Iran is in hot pursuit of atomic weapons. The U.N. Security Council has condemned Iran’s nuclear misconduct, while America seeks to penalize it for producing bomb-grade uranium. So, the ISG proposes, the U.S. should talk with Iran, even while endeavoring to slap it with sanctions.

So let's not even talk with Israel, but instead, let's open dialogue with the maniacs in Iran who profess to wipe them off the map.

“Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist,” Ahmadinejad said Tuesday, “so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out.”

Ahmadinejad addressed a two-day Holocaust-denial conference. Speakers claimed that Adolf Hitler never actually built gas chambers. Conferees trivialized Nazi Germany’s murder of some 11 million people, including six million Jews, as — what else? — an elaborate Jewish fabrication.

One American delegate at Ahmadinejad’s Tehran confab summarized this belief.

“The Holocaust is like a new religion,” former Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard David Duke told Fox News. “That’s because the Holocaust is used as a weapon against the Palestinians as a way of blinding the world to the holocaust that is being committed against the Palestinian people.”

That's David Duke, the academic.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush wisely appears to be ignoring the ISG report, with good reason.

You can decide if this makes sense. The ISG report is available at your local bookstore. Look for it in the fantasy section.